The Trucking Nerd

Wi-Fire

I was approached a few weeks ago by hField Technologies to review their Wi-Fire product since it is a perfect fit for people who are on the go, such as folks who need to entertain business calls 24/7 on their latest mobile phone and particularly truckers who have laptops and would like to increase their range for wifi hotspot connectivity. 

The Wi-Fire is a product that acts as a wireless adapter with a high gain antenna.  Best of all, the design of it is meant to be used on the go with a retractable USB cable and slick fold up design, it is compact and easy to stick in a laptop bag. 

I was particularly interested in reviewing the product because I had built a cantenna a few years ago using a coffee can experimenting with increasing the range of my wifi signal.

After firing up the laptop and experimenting with the Wi-Fire, I am pleasantly surprised at the results.

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Popularity: 79% [?]

As some of you recall I had an issue in the server room a few months ago when the AC went out and we nearly had a meltdown.  I went scouring for a cheap solution to be alerted of the ambient temperture in the server room and quickly found out a good cheap solution didn’t really exist and thus was born the Temperature Scan product.

I was excited the other day to get a testimonial from Arizona from a customer who wrote in to let me know that my hard work developing the temperature scan saved him a lot of potential grief.  In his words:

Pretty cool seeing such a simple and stupid idea yielding fruit for others!

Popularity: 76% [?]

I am finding more and more value in establishing and maintaining my professional network of colleagues on linkedin.  It is a site I have been a member of for a long time and haven’t really tried to use it much until recently.  Dan Goodwill, a fellow consultant and journalist, has a great article that talks about the linked in and the value it adds.

For those who are not linked in, here’s a few reasons why you may want to consider it over some of the other popular social networking tools:

1) It’s for Professionals and is built for business.  Facebook and My Space are neat, but they are more casual and best suited for personal applications.

2) Popularity.  Linked in is quickly growing in number of users as well as functionality.

3) Features.  They provide easy ways to network and search employment opportunities as well as abilities to search for talent you may be looking to hire!

4) Network Updates.  They provide statistics and quick facts about your contacts updates which help you keep up to date with what is going on in your network of colleagues.

5) Online Resume.  I have stopped producing a paper resume and keep my linked in profile up to date.  I include it on my email tagline and offer it to people who want to know more about my experience and skill set.  It’s always up to date and I don’t have to worry about someone looking at a stale copy I had emailed months ago.

Feel free to checkout my profile for an idea of the value it adds.

http://www.linkedin.com/in/beckerben

Popularity: 69% [?]

I’ve been swamped working on several different fronts and projects with a mix of clients and am running across some pretty exciting thoughts that I intend to post some articles on.  I thought I’d drop a quick line for those of you who are still tuned in wondering what the T-Nerd has been up to. 

Some of the topics I’ve queued up include open source business intelligence, outsourcing collaboration overseas I’ve been involved with and a sweet mobile GPS application I’m in progress of building which will be spun off as yet another side venture!

On a side note, if anyone wants a Trucking Nerd Mug, let me know.  The first batch I ordered were a misprint with the ink which faded so they sent me another batch for free, however they also were a misprint, so now I’ve got mugs coming out the wazoo.  Just drop me a line, you pick up shipping and I’ll gift you a mug!

Popularity: 80% [?]

Well, as some people are still finding out, I am in the process of transitioning out of the role as the CIO at Tradewinds and am venturing down some other paths.  I had started a company called Becker Solutions a couple of years ago and pursued in my off hours custom projects and software development initiatives.  This kind of kept me tied to my roots of project based work from my consulting days in addition to exposing me to additional technologies and educational opportunities the day job didn’t afford me.  After much thought, I have decided to make a go of focusing more energy and day hours to this initiative.

It leaves me with the undecided question, what to do with this blog? I’m still a nerd, but not just a “trucking” nerd anymore.  I will probably make updates as it makes sense and as time permits.  Out of the gate, I’m finding my plate is already pretty full, so we’ll have to see how it goes. 

I’ve got a lot of trucking and related systems knowledge, so it’d be crazy to abandon it all, so if you have a project or need, don’t hesitate to give me a shout!

Popularity: 74% [?]

Over a year ago I started planning a vision for the next step in the evolution of the network and systems architecture at Tradewinds.  The vision was to migrate from a physical to a virtualized infrastructure.  One where servers are no longer tethered to physical machines.  One where flexibility and disaster recovery options are abundant.

We worked crazy hours the past month preparing for the final stages of the migration and worked through this past weekend rolling out the new landscape and making the necessary systems changes.  I had expected a massive issue list when everyone returned Monday, but to my surprise, the issues were relatively lightweight, I guess that means we did a thorough job executing the plan…or maybe we just got lucky!  At any rate, I did walk away with a few key lessons that may yield value to others proceeding down the path of virtualizing their servers.

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Popularity: 90% [?]

Well, I haven’t written a post in sometime because I was feverishly spending my spare time working on developing a solution to a problem I ran into.  One Monday morning I walked into work, stepped in front of my server room door and noticed a strange noise coming from the room.  It sounded like a high pitch jet engine sound.  I proceeded to open the door and a blast of hot air came barreling out at me.  The A/C had gone out overnight and the server room was approaching 100 degrees.  Not a good way to start the week off.

After I put a fan in the room and started shutting down non essential equipment, I decided it was time to install a temperature monitoring system into the server room.  This wasn’t the first time we had issues with the A/C unit, but it was the highest the temperature had ever gotten, and I know if it gets to hot, things start going south real quick.  I did some googling, and came up with all kinds of results, but most of these systems were very expensive and did a lot more than what I really needed. 

What I wanted was simple (or so I thought it was):

• USB - Had to be a Plug and Play Sensor that works with any computer.
• Un-tethered - I didn’t want something that was connected to any one machine, I wanted to be able to get readings away from machine exhaust so I could get the ambient temperature of the room.
• Paging / Emailing - I wanted a solution that would alert my blackberry and treo of issues in addition to a number of my hundred email accounts.
• Customizable - I wanted to be able to specify my threshold to monitor and how often to monitor it.
• Temperature Only - I know there are technically a lot of other factors that sophisticated data centers monitor such as humidity, but I also know that it is temperature that I have the most control over and can do the most damage if it gets out of control.
• Cheap - Most importantly, it had to be cheap.  I’m at a small trucking company and the economic times right now don’t warrant me the luxury to throw a rack mounted sensor in that does all kinds of fancy stuff.  I was looking for the <$100 solution!

After digging, I decided the solution I was looking for didn’t exist, so I decided to create one.

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Popularity: 92% [?]

I am pleased to announce John Starks as a guest writer for the Trucking Nerd.  John has an array of experience and a tall resume with some very well known companies.  After working with John for a stint, I can attest to his expertise and knowledge of trucking, particularly from an operational and management perspective.  He will be crafting articles periodically for the Trucking Nerd to add some additional perspective and insights.  His content may not necessarily be technical in nature, but will always be relevant to the trucking industry.  His first article relating to operations and technology is published.

When I first started the blog, I also had registered TruckingNerds.com in the event that additional perspectives would be added to the blog.  I encourage anyone else who enjoys writing and is interested in technology and / or trucking, feel free to drop me a line!

Popularity: 92% [?]

How many of you have experienced an IT project where at the end of the day either the program that was created does not do what it originally was intended to do so no one uses it or it does exactly what is needed but there is a new “fire” today so again no one uses it? 

During my career in transportation, I have been fortunate enough to work with a large, mid-sized, and small carrier.  A carrier as large as 9000 trucks down to a carrier of 150 trucks.  I’ve seen and experienced many things but one thing that I’ve seen in common at all these companies, relative to relationship between IT and Operations, is how these departments work together. 

Many times I’ve seen operations requesting reports, new applications, improvements, customized programming, etc. that, in the heat of the moment, they “need” but 2 weeks later has fallen to the wayside with the latest fire. 

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Popularity: 78% [?]

As I’ve come to learn more about blogging, I realize that the trucking blogsphere is somewhat slim pickings, there just isn’t a whole lot out there.  I’m always on the lookout for feeds that make my shortlist and am particularly interested in other trucking and or technology related blogs.

There are a few blogs out there I enjoy, as mentioned the Private Fleets blog and a few of the others I link to here.  There is also another author, Dan Goodwill, a transportation consultant / author.  He recently posted an article highlighting some popular trucking related blogs.  I recommend checking it out if you are looking for blogs to subscribe.  I also recommend periodically checking for new blogs which enter the arena which it seems a few more here and there keep popping up.  You can leverage blogged.com and technorati to help you out!

Popularity: 76% [?]